SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS*****

Think of the most sinister but beautiful surreal dream-like worlds created by early Lynch and now imagine that they are depicted mostly with intricately beautifully designed stop-motion puppets.  Imagine film-makers with the creativity and perfection and unspoken synchronicity of the Quay Brothers, working with the haunting, elegiac short stories of Bruno Schulz.  Imagine a world of pre-WW2 Central Europe, literature grappling with the new concepts of subconscious and science, but also treating with enduring emotional topics such as grief and the desire to somehow control time.

This is the world of SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS - a mesmerising, haunting and truly beautiful piece of art created by the Quay Brothers. I watched it in IMAX - a bizarre format for such an intricate miniature world, and yet wonderful because it really allowed us to see the detail of it.

The film opens with a live action framing device - an auctioneer atop a roof advertising his surreal and unique wares. And then we see him with a particularly wonderful box of tricks - a retina that liquifies under moonlight and little apertures that allow us to see the dying thoughts of our protagonist.

And so we enter the stop-motion world and our protagonist Jozef, lightly modelled on Bruno Schulz himself. He is travelling on a near-abandoned and anachronistic trainline to a strange sanatorium where his father is both alive and dead.  Dr Gotard explains that time is strange here. And we will see events played and replayed amidst the dusty gothic corridors that could have come from Nosferatu or Gormenghast.  The film resists easy explanations and conventional narratives. It evokes mood and emotion with few hooks for the casual viewer to hang his hat on. But those who know the works and life of Schulz will see his iconography in the film, and most poignantly Jozef clutching a loaf of bread, foreshadowing Schulz' execution by the Gestapo.

SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS has a running time of 75 minutes. It played Venice and London 2024 and Kinoteka 2025.

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL****

I finished the film year strong with a double-bill of films about miserable life experiences tempered by kindly grandma figures who like the TV comedy show The Two Ronnies. In the first, by Adam Elliot (MARY & MAX) we are in a stop-motion depiction of childhood in 1970s Melbourne, Australia.  Grace (Succession's Sarah Snook) is a sweet but nerdy girl obsessed with snails, and beloved by her brother Gilbert. The first in a series of awful events results in her being split from that brother and fostered by a couple of swingers. Meanwhile, Gilbert is fostered by a couple of religious fundamentalists who want to suppress his incipient homosexuality.  As an adult, Grace is alone but for her kindly old grandma-substitute friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver). Even her fiancé isn't all he's cracked up to be  As with BETTER MAN the film does end with Grace creating a safe and happy space for herself, and letting go of some of her childhood trauma. But the overall feel of the film is - as with Elliot's prior works - miserabalist. If anything shitty can go wrong for Grace it will. As ever, the animation is beautifully rendered. There's something so unique and expressive in Elliot's style that you want to pause frames to pick up on the detail. But I found this inverse WALLACE & GROMIT just a bit too unrelenting in its sadness.

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL has a running time of 95 minutes and is rated R. It played the BFI London Film Festival 2024 and will be released in the UK on February 14th 2025. It was released in the USA in October.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM**

Director Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost In The Shell)'s THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is a mediocre animated film set in Middle Earth that has too little story for its running time, despite having about seven screenwriters credited to it. Apparently the film was rushed out so that New Line could keep the rights to The Lord of the Rings, and if so that might also explain the rather average animation. I suspect there is a tighter, more compelling 90 minute film within this baggy two hour plus running time, and that a 90 minute film may have allowed for a more detailed and inventive animation style.

The story is crafted to speak directly to the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, much as the TV series Rings of Power does. This means that musical themes are repeated as are character tropes: the proud but outmatched King, the rejected but loyal nephew, the daughter who is underestimated but proves herself a hero. At its worst, lines are lifted straight from LOTR, such as when Hera says that all eyes will be fixed on her. 

The story begins with Helm Hammerhand (Brian Cox - Succession), proud ruler of Rohan, refusing to marry his daughter Hera (nepo baby Gaia Wise) to Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), the son of a Dunlander. This starts a massive feud, resulting in Wulf later attacking Edoras and forcing Hera to lead her people into what will become Helm's Deep. Battles ensue.

To be clear, I did quite enjoy the film but just wish it had been tighter and meatier and less beholden to LOTR callbacks. There's something really moving about seeing Helm's end and then hearing that funeral song. But it just isn't enough to sustain the running time.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 134 minutes.

WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL*****

It's hard to believe that Wallace & Gromit have been entertaining us for over 35 years. They have become veritable national treasures, along with their inventor and animator Nick Park.  And this latest instalment of their adventures, given a prime-time slot of Christmas Day in the UK, is an absolute delight!  The films remain as wonderfully funny, heat-warming, cine-literate, and genuinely pleasing to all ages as the rest of the franchise. We were guffawing, spell-bound and heartily pleased.

Park is joined by co-director Merlin Crossingham, on debut, in VENGEANCE MOST FOWL.  We begin with our beloved inventor Wallace, now voiced by Ben Whitehead, creating a household helper called Norbot to help with his long-suffering sidekick Gromit's daily tasks. Of course, the mute dog Gromit can never voice his scepticism at the ruthless efficiency of Norbot, but his expressively animated face tells us that he is not the least bit surprised when Norbot is hacked and placed in Evil mode, spawning a whole series of nefarious droids.  And who has hacked them? None other than our duos nemesis, Feathers McGraw!  Currently incarcerated in a zoo thanks to Wallace & Gromit's past crime-fighting capers, McGraw is out to re-steal the Blue Diamond, with the help of his minion-Norbots. Can our trusty duo save the day?!

This film has everything you might hope for in a Wallace & Gromit spectacular. Lovingly hand-crafted clay-mation. Tons of visual gags and cinema references, particularly to break-out films and heist movies.  And some wonderful voice cast cameos - not least Diane Morgan aka Philomena Cunk as Onya Doorstep, a local news reporter.  In the main cast, I loved Reece Sheersmith (Inside No.9) as Norbot and newcomer Lauren Patel as PC Mukherjee.  

WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL is rated PG and has a running time of 79 minutes. It was released on BBC One in the UK on Christmas Day and will be released on Netflix on January 3rd.

PIECE BY PIECE**** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Closing Night Gala

Multi-talented musician, rapper, producer, fashionista and all around creative genius Pharrell tells his life story in a documentary wherein it was shot conventionally and then over-drawn in Lego animation. I guess this is a thing now.  After all, we are getting Robbie Wiliams played by a chimp this week. Why? I dunno. Why not? The result is colourful, creative, imaginative and delightful. Who doesn't work to see Snoop Dogg as a minifig?  And by the way, making this film also made Lego become even more inclusive by radically increasing their range of skin colours and textured hair in the minifig range.

The problem with the technique is that it is distancing - and I think this may be why Pharrell chose it. He gets to completely control the narrative to the point of not revealing his or any of the interviewees' facial reactions to the questions being asked. As a result, I feel like acclaimed documentary director Morgan Neville (20 FEET FROM STARDOM) was stymied from the start.  The doc is therefore as fascinating and well constructed as we might expect from Neville. But Pharrell's falling out with Neptunes band mate is elided over, as just one example, and we get nothing about the Blurred Lines controversy, as another. The resulting film feels like hagiography. And I am a Pharrell fan. But I feel there was some grittier stuff we needed to get into.

PIECE BY PIECE is rated PG and has a running time of 93 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2024 and was released in October.

INSIDE OUT 2***

INSIDE OUT 2 was released this summer and has made just shy of USD1.7bn and counting on a USD200m budget. So two things are certain. 1) No-one needs another review of this film because everyone has already seen it.  2) Bob Iger is for sure gonna greenlight a threequel.

I found the film to be charming and spot on about the perils of puberty but basically blah. Maybe I am spoiled - the stunning animation and creativity are literally something I have seen before. The novelty and sheer heart of the first instalment got me all choked up in the threatre. This one, I admired, but it didn't hit me emotionally. Plus, I am hardly the target demographic.

Our protagonist Riley is now a 13 year old good kid dealing with increased anxiety and envy at the onset of puberty. She is sent to a sports camp with her two childhood best friends and faces the twin evils of wanting to hang with the cool kids, and doubting she is good enough to make the team. But of course, as we know she's a good kid, so no actual peril there.

Meanwhile, inside her head, the emotions we have come to know and love are joined by new puberty-laden baggage, and we get a new concept - the Sense of Self.  The message here is that it's damaging to try and only use good memories and feelings to create a Sense of Self. You have to let the bad stuff in too, and deal with it, and grow from it, and love it. So enough with the helicopter parenting parents!

Yep, Amy Poehler's Joy is very much the target of all those books I have been reading by NYU Professor Jonathan Haidt about the dangers of molly coddling kids in the real world, but letting them run wild in the virtual world. So as much as this film is aimed at kids, parents take note!

INSIDE OUT 2 has a running time of 96 minutes and is rated PG.

THE WILD ROBOT***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 5

THE WILD ROBOT is an utterly delightful film - visually stunning, occasionally funny, and deeply moving.  I haven't felt this invested in an animated film - or this awed by the visuals - in quite some time. Kudos to director Chris Sanders (LILO & STITCH): may this film earn him his well-deserved Oscar. 

The movie is based on a series of books by Peter Brown and tells the story of a robot called Roz (Lupita Nyongo) who learns to escape her programming and feel love.  In her crash landing and frenetic first day on the island Roz killed a gosling's family and becomes his adoptive mother. She assigns herself the task of raising him to eat, swim, and fly the winter migration.  But the cute little gosling, Brightbill (Kit Connor), imprints himself on her and soon she is just another harassed, confused and loving mother to her adoptive son.  

Roz is helped in raising Brightbill by a wily but ultimately warm-hearted Fox called Fink (Pedro Pascal). But the other animals on the island look on in bewilderment and mockery. They are scared of the "monster" robot and of her predatory fox friend. And let's be clear: there's no LION KING style gentle allusion to death in this film - it is faced head on and suffuses every scene. These are animals whose fear is necessary to survival. But Roz teaches them that kindness is also an option, and that together they can survive a harsh winter.

The resulting film is one of carefully calibrated peril but also deep warmth and heart.  This is nowhere better exemplified in the character of Longbill (Bill Nighy), a wise, kind old goose who will lead the winter migration. We have never heard Nighy so warm and encouraging.  But all the voice cast are superb. Nyongo moves from a Siri-esque relentless optimism to something more real and modulated. Connor is just adorable as Brightbill. And Pascal is both funny and deeply vulnerable as Fink.

And last but assuredly not least, this movie looks stunning.  The rendering of the animals, the wilderness, and the night scenes in particular, was a feast for the imagination.  I felt utterly immersed in, and delighted by, the world. This movie is truly something special and I highly recommend it.

THE WILD ROBOT is rated PG and has a running time of 101 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2024 and was released in the USA last month. It will be released in the UK on October 18th.

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET***** - BFI London Film Festival 2023 - Day 11

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET is an absolute delight and a worthy sequel to the beloved first film. It has everything you want from a family adventure comedy - verbal, visual and physical humour; beautifully executed action set-pieces; characters you actually care about; and an uplifting message about caring about your community and female empowerment.

As the film opens, we see our liberated chickens living the good life in a chicken version of The Shire. Our hero and heroine Rocky and Ginger have a lovely baby daughter, Molly, who seems to have a spirit of adventure that her mother at least is eager to suppress.  They are so happy, and the world so unsafe, why leave their idyllic island?  All of this changes when Molly runs away to an apparently bucolic chicken fantasy land only to discover that it's an horrific factory designed to make chickens docile so that they make tastier nuggets. And so, after the escape movie if the original, we now get a heist movie, as Ginger Rocky and their friends have to break IN to the chicken farm to liberate their daughter. 

The resulting film is beautiful, smart, imaginative and endless fun. I wouldn't change a single stop-motion frame. It was wonderful to be back in the company of old friends, if newly (and controversially) voiced.  Bella Ramsay (The Last of Us) is wonderfully courageous and earnest as Molly and I particularly loved her rogueish rat uncles voiced by Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays. But most of all it was wonderful to see the cine-literate team behind this film reference and re-imagine so many heist movie and evil lair tropes - not least British ones! - with just the right amount of mischief and irreverence.  We had a wonderful time, and our lovely youngsters were bouncing with delight all the way through. 

CHICKEN RUN: THE DAWN OF THE NUGGET is rated PG and has a running time of 97 minutes. It opens on limited release in UK cinemas on December 8th and then on Netflix globally on December 15th.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM*****

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM blew me away with its wonderfully grungy, plasticine-y, incredibly dynamic animation style; its hilariously funny script; its ridiculously impressive voice cast; its 90s nostalgia; and its heart-felt debate about whether mutants can ever be accepted by humans (echoes of X-MEN). Kudos to debut directors Kyler Spears and Jeff Rowe, and screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, for creating something so genuinely compelling, that deserves to spoken of in the same breath as SPIDERVERSE. Five stars FTW!

The movie starts with our teenange mutant protagonists living in hiding in New York, under the tutelage of their ninja rat daddy voiced by JACKIE CHAN!!!! He suffered rejection from humans and just wants to keep his kids safe. So they are left pining for real High School life, absurdly informed by watching FERRIS BUELLER at a drive-thru, and wondering whether if they came out of hiding to help people with their mad skills, humans would accept them.

Lucky for us they get a chance to test out their theory.  They meet April O'Neill, their wannabe journalist ally, here recast as a young African-American teenager with glasses, smarts, and a penchant for chundering on air. Together they realise that the person terrorising New York is an evil scientist (Maya Rudolph) who wants to take their Precious Bodily Fluids and create even more mutants. She and her  evil henchman (Ice-T) will then assert mutant dominance over humans for good.

I absolutely loved the knowing pop-culture references, the funny dialogue, and the genuine feeling of camaraderie I felt among the turtles. I genuinely felt that Jackie Chan's rat was their surrogate dad and that they loved each other.  The whole thing was clever, knowing but also just wonderfully uplifting.  Honestly, I wouldn't change a frame and really hope this is the first in a franchise.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM has a running time of 99 minutes and is rated PG. It was released in early August.

DISENCHANTED*

DISENCHANTED is a joyless, tuneless mess of a sequel that may well put Amy Adams' career to bed. Think about it: when was the last time she was the leading lady in an actual hit?  But the real issue here isn't anyone's performance (although to be sure, no-one looks like they're having a good time).  The real issue is a messy,  overly-complex script that doesn't seem to know what it wants the film to be about. 

As the movie opens, we see our fairytale princess Giselle (Adams) now married to her Manhattan lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey).  They're both over-tired and stressed parenting a new baby daughter and a surly teenage Morgan (newcomer Gabriella Baldacchino). So, they move to suburbia and meet Maya Rudolph's Malvina - the oppressively perfect mean girl who seems to run the town. At this point we think the plot is going to be about Giselle coping with the reality after Happy Ever After, and dealing with a real-life villain.  

But no. To add a needless complication and magical Macguffin we have King Edward (James Marsden) and Queen Nancy (Idina Menzel) turn up with a magic wand that Giselle uses to turn her town into a fairytale, and herself into a wicked stepmother.  This totally unanchors the plot, which is now about which mean girl will win. By the end, I think the point the movie is trying to make is that Morgan has to accept Giselle as her real mum.  But all that stuff about middle-aged and middle-class ennui seems to have been forgotten, and Malvina is presumably still harrumphing around the town scaring all in sight.

There was nothing charming or funny or wonderful about this film. It felt joyless and directionless and cheap. The quality of the songwriting was particularly disappointing. I am awarding it a sole star for the only decent and mischievous number - where Giselle and Malvina debate who is the most wicked. The rest is disposable.

DISENCHANTED is rated PG and has a running time. It is on release on Disney+.

GIULLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 11

It feels as though the theme of this year’s  BFI London Film Festival is coming to terms with the death of a loved one. Maybe with a side order of humanity versus religio-fascism. If you don’t believe me, remember this is the second film I’ve watched in the last twenty- four hours that takes a children’s story and recasts it with added violence in the midst of early twentieth century European fascism. The result is a film that is strangely full of childish enthusiasm and hope but that does not shy away from the reality of mortality, death and war. Del Toro was straightforward about its agenda when he introduced the film at today’s world premiere: it’s a film about disobedience as a virtue. And as Christoph Waltz said, there’s something worthwhile in a film about a wooden puppet who wants to be a boy, at a time when humans are being made into puppets. 

The film is depicted with the most beautifully rendered stop-motion animation that has texture and vivid colours and the most wondrous attention to detail. Our narrator is Sebastian J Cricket - never referred to with his pejorative nickname. He’s voiced by Ewan MacGregor as a rather vain but ultimately lovely little insect, and he provides much of the comedy of the film. 

We are treated to a prolonged prologue that tells us about the beloved son that Gepetto (David Bradley) lost, and after whom he fashions Pinocchio. One of the themes of the film is that one should never have to change to be loved. The narrative journey of Gepetto is that he has to learn Pinocchio for himself rather than trying to make him a good little Carlo. 

The world around our trio is one of Italy falling into fascism under Mussolini. And we have a lot of fun with innocent Pinocchio mocking "Il Dolce" and inspiring others to disobey laws that are unjust. Gregory Mann gives a sensational voice performance as the puppet - full of energy and fun and heart.  In one of the most moving scenes of the film, Pinocchio passes on the advice given to him by Sebastian - that fathers may say mean things when they fall into despair, but they don’t mean it. As in all totalitarian societies, there is no room for the personal in this Italy and poor little Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard) struggles to be the son his Fascist father wants him to be. 

As with Pixar’s SOUL there’s a fair amount of time spent in the afterlife, or underworld or whatever you’d like to call it. And this is a subtly radical world insofar as it shows that the Catholic Church is quiescent to fascism. The imperative to obey moves easily from Church to State in this film as in UNICORN WARS - also playing in this year's festival. But in Del Toro’s universe it’s the spirits of nature that have real power, and it’s a pagan elemental world that we’re living in. This is depicted in the guise of two feminine powers, both voiced by Tilda Swinto..

So the subject matter is grown-up but as with all the best childrens' films it will appeal to the adults and to the children, who have always been aware of the horrors of this world. As Del Toro said in his introduction, this is fine for children to watch, so long as their parents talk to them about it afterwards.

GIULLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO has a running time of 113 minutes. The world premiere is at the BFI London Film Festival 2022. It will be released on December 9th.

UNICORN WARS - BFI London Film Festival 2022 - Day 10

Alberto Vazquez' UNICORN WARS is essentially a one-gag film, but what a gag! Cuddly Care Bears-adjacent teddy bears are fighting a brutal war against innocent looking unicorns, inspired by religious zealoutry and the belief that the unicorns have stolen the Magic Forest. Conscripted into the army, poor Gordi has body image issues and a heart of gold.  But his twin brother Azulin, resentful at being born second, is a vainglorious pyschopath whose true nature is unleashed during an army expedition into the Heart of Darkness.  While Gordi makes friends with an injured unicorn and wants peace, a brutalised Azulin becomes a tool of the religio-fascist regime. 

This is not your childhood's care bear animated series.  Vasquez makes that clear in the opening scenes that show a bear washing his balls and taking a piss.  There's a kind of infantile pleasure every time we see a bear doing something vile, like beating another bear up, or the iconic heart-design used in care bears bent to a more evil purpose.  There's also a more serious commentary on - I guess - the Spanish civil war, and every other example of religious nutters inspiring endless war and strife.  You could argue this film has the same subject matter as THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN.  The most sinister character is the Catholic priest teddy bear who sends the cannon fodder teddies off to war, and watching Azulin eventually take his place as an icon of nihilistic violence.

All this takes place amidst animation that's genuinely beautiful to behold. Acid bright pinks and blues and greens - a stunning depiction of the magic forest, and a true understanding of colour and form.  I can't wait to discover more of Vasquez' work.

UNICORN WARS has a running time of 85 minutes and played the BFI London Film Festival.

ENCANTO*****

60 movies in and Disney finally made one where my childhood self might have seen herself on screen: brown, bespectacled, curly-haired, clearly not a Princess, no magical powers, not at all submissive or mild, but definitely curious and loyal, from a large loving multi-generational family.  It's easy to say the phrase "representation matters" and it's another to truly feel it in your bones and to believe that you could be a Disney hero.  What I would've given to have seen ENCANTO as a kid. 

The film is an absolute joy: a riot of colour and dance, best seen on a big screen with a great sound-system. Lin Manuel Miranda provides songs that are instantly recognisable as his - mashing up musical genres but reaching back to latin roots. And Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz) is just a wonderful heroine. She clearly loves her eccentric, magically gifted family, but harbours a secret sadness that she is the only one without magical powers. That said, she's smart, and realises that something bad is happening to her enchanted family house, and that her family's magic might be under threat. And in exploring why, she realises that all of her family have their own stories too:  the super strong Luisa is buckling under emotional stress; perfect princess-like Isabella actually just wants to "let it go". The final act twists are deeply satisfying and I found myself in tears at the ending, with all of its affirmation and emotional release. Kudos to all involved.

ENCANTO is rated PG and has a running time of 102 minutes. The movie is on global release.

WOLFWALKERS - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 4

From the directorial team that brought us the delightful children's animated films SONG OF THE SEA and THE SECRET OF KELLS comes the visually stunning and warm-hearted WOLFWALKERS.  

The film is about a friendship between two young brave girls across the lines the divide the seventeenth century Irish city of Kilkenny.  On one side we have Robyn, whose English father (Sean Bean) is part of Cromwell's occupying forces.  He's a lovely father, keen to protect his young daughter, but in a dynamic not dissimilar to that between Ned and Arya Stark, she just wants to have adventures in the woods. It's there that she meets Meabh, a young girl who lives with the wolves in the woods outside the city walls.  The occupying forces, led by Simon McBurney's leader, want to get rid of any of the pagan influence of nature, and to enforce strict Christian control. They are depicted in harsh angles and strong primary colours as they move through the densely packed, vertically imposing streets of the medieval city. By contrast, the woods are gloriously vividly warmly coloured and full of organic swirling shapes and movements.  The wolves aren't the evil nasty beings the townsfolk think they are.  They just act that way to try and scare off the people who are trying to run them off. In fact, the wonderful Wolf Mother, Maebh's mum, are healers who live in harmony with nature.

And so we set up this wonderful adventure story where Maebh and Robyn team up to try and rescue Maebh's mother.  On the way, Robyn realises that she too can be a wolf at night. I loved how the animators gave us a wolf-eye perspective, changing the style of animation to show us her stunning night-vision.  And the themes of the strength of female friendship - the importance of empathy and diversity and respecting the environment - resonate too.

WOLFWALKERS has a running time of 103 minutes and is rated PG. The movie played Toronto and London 2020 and will be released in the USA on December 11th.

HAPPY THUGGISH PAKI - BFI London Film Festival 2020 - Day 1

HAPPY THUGGISH PAKI is an effervescent animated rap-video that starts with the artist, Hardeep Pandhal talking about the mechanics of modern animation, before we switch to a 1980s Pacman cartoon and then enter into a free-associative biographical rap that's by turns hilarious and provocative.  There's imagery of a turban-wearing muslim man being hung in front of the White House and this switches to ruminations on masturbation in your bedroom or filling in tax returns.  All the while a sample of Ms Pacman squealing "Paki/Paci" squeals in the background.  The visual and lyrical references are deep and I certainly didn't catch them all, but I really loved the experience.  The rap ends, we're back into the animator's studio and we get an even more random shot of him trying to remember the names of kids he was at school with from an old photo. We've all been there, but why here and now?!

HAPPY THUGGISH PAKI has a running time of 21 minutes.

ALADDIN

I approached the live-action remake of ALADDIN with extreme cynicism. I didn't understand why you'd want to remake the perfection that was Robin Williams in the original animated version, and I had my doubts that mockney action director Guy Ritchie was the guy to do it.  But I have to admit that this film won me over within its first minutes and that by the end the I was a committed fan. It is, in essence, a very faithful adaptation with all the beloved songs from Alan Mencken; all the beloved characters; and even some of the set piece action and dance numbers recreated scene for scene.  But it does so much more in its delineation of character and acknowledgement of current political mores, and yet none of that feels clunky.

But let's start with what this film lives or dies on - the performance of Will Smith as the Genie.  I have to say that he is just wonderful - charismatic, effervescent, truly a warm and loveable figure.  Crucially, Smith makes the figure his own, rather than trying to ape the untouchable Williams, and I love that he gets his own love-story framing device. His genie is almost more human, more warm and more touching that Williams', and the film benefits from that.  Smith's Genie also doesn't dominate the film in the way that Williams' did and that's all to the benefit of the really impressive cast of actors playing the other roles.  I really liked Mena Massoud as Aladdin - he was charming, smart and I really rooted for him. But I felt he was outshone by Marwan Kenzari (MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS) as a superb Jafar - almost like an Edmund from Lear with a kind of demented logic to his scheming - a poor boy like Aladdin who resents that he doesn't live in a pure meritocracy where his smarts would be properly rewarded.  But most of all, I loved Naomi Scott (POWER RANGERS) as Jasmine.  She has strength and agency and her costumes, while stunning, aren't the cliched skimpy numbers from the original film. Mencken gives her a new song that shows her desire to be a just ruler and decide her own fate, and in this film Jasmine is not a damsel in distress but truly the protagonist to Jafar's antagonist.  I really rooted for Jasmine and Aladdin to get together, but even more I rooted for Jasmine to rule, and that's as it should be.

All of this lovely character work is situated inside a truly stunning production design that Guy Ritchie's kinetic camera-work shows off to its maximum. It turns out he really was the guy to direct this film and I really can't fault any of it. 

ALADDIN has a running time of 128 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released earlier this year and is now available to rent and own.

FROZEN II

I walked into FROZEN II expected nothing more than a cynical shameless cash-in on the success of its predecessor.  I knew Disney wouldn't have the balls to give Elsa a gay love interest so it didn't seem as if the story had anywhere to go. But I have to say that all my cynicism was overturned. FROZEN II is a beautifully told, technically stunning, deeply moving film, and one of the best I've seen this year. What's more, having heard a post-film Q & A with director Jennifer Lee, I can happily report that none of the character evolutions have been organised to be safe or commercial - rather to be true to the much-beloved characters and how they might feel at this "second act of a Broadway play".   A classic example of this is with the storyline of Kristoff. As the movie opens, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) is grappling with how to craft the perfect proposal for Princess Anna (Kristen Bell).  But the writers actually went so far as to create and screen test a version where Anna proposes to Kristoff. The objection wasn't conservative, but that after a movie's worth of his efforts, it felt mean not to let him do it.  Similarly, when it comes to Elsa (Idina Menzel), I'm no fool - of course Disney isn't going to let her be out gay. But Jennifer Lee did make the good point that she's not actually ready for any relationship yet, because she's still at a weird place.  If the first film was about Elsa learning to accept that she can't hide who she is and isolate herself, the second film is about her moving away from just being almost pathologically grateful to be accepted by Arundel, to being genuinely happy in her own environment.

So that's the basic story arc. I loved the way the writers put it.  We have Anna as a fairytale princess and Elsa as a mythic archetype.  And as in the first film, we have to have Anna pull Elsa back from a classic mythic tragic fate, but we also have to respect that each has their own world.  To come to this resolution, we need to allow them to explore their back story. Why doesn't Anna have magic powers? Why were their parents out in a storm on a ship? To find out, the sisters, Kristoff and Olaf head north from Arundel to explore an enchanted forest that contains a dam that stops Arundel being flooded.  In doing so, we get a beautiful story that lightly but earnestly essays the dangers of not respecting nature, and the difficulty of confronting a colonial exploitative past. At the emotional level, there's a beautiful story about not being ashamed to depend on others, and how people from very different backgrounds (indeed, genres!) can come together to balance each other out, without demanding conformity.

All of which sounds terribly profound and earnest, and it is. But it's all dressed up in the most wonderful comedy and musical numbers. Olaf the snowman has a show-stopping old fashioned musical number that had the little children laughing.  Kristoff gets a parody 80s rock ballad that had the adults crying with laughter.  And the big number of this piece - "Into The Unknown" is just as beautifully crafted and penetrating as anything in the first film. I laughed, I cried, and was transported into the most dazzlingly created autumnal world.  I simply cannot wait for FROZEN III!

FROZEN II has a running time of 105 minutes.  It goes on global release on November 22nd. 

BFI London Film Festival Short Film Reviews - Create Strand

Here are some quick takes on short films showing in the Create strand of this year's BFI London Film Festival.

#21XOXO is a wonderfully imaginative and scarily spot on satire on dating in the digital age. The animated short by Sine and Imge Ozbilge is really visually inventive, melding social media logos onto its protagonist, and showing in a last act twist how even when she flips to "real" video footage her self-image is mediated by this online distortion. Great 80s-style synth pop soundtrack too. Running time 9 minutes.

ALGO-RHYTHM is a 14 minute Senagalese hip-hop musical that bizarrely, wittily and completely speaks to life in Brexit Britain and Trump's America! It embodies social media in a slick hip-hop artist who boasts how he knows everything about us and can harvest our votes with the most subtle of methods. Like #21XOXO and SWATTED the director cleverly intersperses live action with graphically distorted cyber-visuals that suggest a disturbing mix between the real and the online.  The resulting film is like the funky imaginative PSA we all needed in 2015.

SWATTED is a really disturbing but brilliantly imagined 21 minute short about cyber-harassment in the online gaming world by Ismael Joffroy Chandoutis.  I had no idea what swatting was, but apparently it's when cyber bullies call the real world police with a fake threat in order to have a SWAT team break into and generally scare the shit out of their victims.  This strikes me as horrifically juvenile and such a waste of police time, as well as clearly traumatic to the victims. Chadoutis shows this phenomenon by inter-cutting chatroom dialogue as swat attacks are actually happening, with video game footage that seemingly depicts the attacks. However, rather than taking the footage as is from Grand Theft Auto, he kind of hollows it out into a creepy surreal wire-frame world. We also get voiceover from swatter victims.  The results are really beautifully imagined and surreal, and still so human and disturbing.  It's truly a profound and provocative piece showing real technical skill but also crucially the ability to balance that with deep emotion.

THE SASHA is a 20 minute film about the astronaut Charles Duke, who landed on the Moon with Apollo XVI and photographed its surface. Seeing all the old black and white photographs and colour video footage of the mission was an absolute treat. It makes the point that Duke failed to take a picture of the entire earth from space - an iconic photo taken during the next mission - however he WAS remembered for the family photo he left on the moon.  We also get some interesting stuff about the evolution of lunar photography.  But I could have really done without the pontificating narrator Tania Theodoru, especially about half way through the doc when it goes off into some kind of disquisition on the nature of the space. There's just a little too much indulgence in the final five minutes altogether, and I'm always nervous when directors (in this case Maria Molina Peiro) try to ascribe motive and reactions to people when they can't possibly know if that were the case.

INCREDIBLES 2

The Incredible family is back, but out of work when the world turns against superheroes.  But have no fear! Superrich siblings appear offering Mrs I a job as a private sector superhero complete with PR rehabilitation plan.  When did anything in this world ever go wrong with American superrich siblings involved? So dad stays at home with kids - cue lots of jokes about how tough childcare is - especially when baby Jack Jack has superpowers too. And mum goes off to fight a newly emerged super villain called Screenslaver. No guesses as to who that turns out to be in real life.  

The resulting film is visually witty and of course the domestic duty role reversal throws up a lot of good gags. But I couldn't help but feel that this sequel lacked a little elan and all felt a bit predictable and blah.  The animation is of course superb and the design wonderful but animated films have moved on since the original and this film just hasn't.  In a world where the cutting edge of animated design and wit is defined by SPIDERMAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE - this film seems rather old-fashioned - stuck in time 14 years ago when it was pioneering. Does this sort of middle-age middle-class humour about old-fashioned men struggled to take care of a kid really feel relevant anymore?

INCREDIBLES 2 is available to rent and own.  It has a running time of 118 minutes and is rated PG.

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN comes to our screens with an impeccable pedigree.  It's director, Marc Forster, has previously explored the inner lives of iconic British children's authors with FINDING NEVERLAND. And its screenwriters have both written and directed award-winning films - whether Alex Ross Perry with HER SMELL or Tom McCarthy with SPOTLIGHT.  It also stars three charismatic British actors - Ewan McGregor as Christopher Robin; Hayley Atwell as his wife; and Mark Gatiss as his venal boss.  And the animation is really lovely - the characters of Winnie The Pooh are fluffy and cuddly and voiced by actors that truly bring them to life!  

And yet, despite all this, the movie just fails to spark interest or emotion.  Maybe its because the opening scenes of a work-worn middle-aged Christopher Robin take so long to establish. Maybe it's because we only see Christopher returning Pooh to the Hundred Acre Wood and having fun with all his childhood friends about an hour in. Maybe it's because even when his daughter meets the animals there still doesn't seem to be any real sense of joy in the film.  And without that, all we really have is a rehash of the story of MARY POPPINS. So, sadly, this is one to avoid. 

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN is rated PG and has a running time of 107 minutes.  It is now available to rent and own.